#temporarycustodians is an R&D project initiated by curator Helen Kaplinsky and artist Maurice Carlin, asking how the shift towards the sharing economy, collaborative commons and peer2peer distribution might constitute an alternative to historical modes of public and private collecting. The term ‘custodian’ evokes responsibility, guardianship, and care taking; ‘temporary,’ the ideal of a TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone) and a property function of ‘holding without owning.’

The historically enshrined principles of collecting forbid deaccessioning, condemn art works to spend 90% of the time in storage, and remain in a constant and stable state. This workshop will consult and diagram the artwork as a networked resource to consider a repositioning in relation to collecting cultures: how do artworks become visible during the presumed invisible moment of storage, what are the alternatives to the arrogance of institutional commissioning, and how to approach the production of artwork as an ecological activity, where materials compositing an artwork may pass into another industry?

With Helen Kaplinsky and Maurice Carlin

Helen Kaplinsky is an independent curator based in London. She has undertaken fellowships with the Contemporary Art Society and the Arts Council Collection. Both considered the relationship between property and collections. Over past few years she has contributed to programmes at Whitechapel Gallery, South London Gallery, Tate (Britain and Liverpool), The Government Art Collection, The Photographers Gallery, ICA (London), The Liverpool Biennial, MIMA, Goldsmiths University, LIMAZULU, Mercer Union (Toronto) and The Public School of New York.

Maurice Carlin is a Manchester-based artist. His work merges performance, place and publishing to produce dialogues between digital and physical experience. His work has been featured in Frieze, The Guardian and Art Monthly. In 2007, he co-founded Islington Mill Art Academy, a peer-led experiment into alternative modes of art education. Recent shows include First...Next...Then...Finally, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (2013), Blanco Blanco, La Escocesa, Barcelona (2012), Self Publisher and Other Works, Banner Repeater, London (2011), How to Stay Awake, MCP, Antwerp (2011) Other Forms of Life (with Bik van der Pol), AND Festival, various locations (2010). Maurice is Director of Islington Mill, a leading independent UK arts organisation based in Salford, in the NW England. Structured around an organic network of independent artists, Islington Mill runs innovative inter-disciplinary public arts programmes and artist residencies alongside studio spaces and an artists’ B&B.